Well, that's kind of the point of Ion Bolt, isn't it? I think it's nice for the Akkan to have at least one pretty useful combat-oriented ability anyway (other than Armistice, which is somewhat difficult to level up for).

And Ion Bolt doesn't prevent the enemy from warping out if they're on the edge of the gravity well. All you need to do is to make sure your cap(s) stay on the edge if there's an enemy Akkan and damage-dealing ships.

Akkan- best colo bonus, armistice is insane (if you comp stompers knew all the semi-exploits this abiility has)

LRM- highest DPS LRF

TEC early game gets colony cap with excellent eco bonus which coupled with 2 civic trade ports can give you superb eco start or you can just spam high dps LRMs and lock enemy caps with ion bolt. Both very easy and very effective. Akkan is too versatile. Egg and Progen don't come close.

AM is not really an issue, you just attack enemy frigs with your LRM until you get enough AM to blast enemy cap.

Couldn't dis-agree more. Ion Bolt is the only truly useful general combat ability for the Akkan. TU has only the most MARGINAL of uses ie out ranging a SB and Armistice is situational only. Lets compare that with the combat utility of the other Colo Caps.

Evacuator:

Nano-Dissembler- widely accepted as the single best sniping ability in the game. Chews through cap ships like they are breakfast.

Gravity Bomb- Similar practical effects to Ion Bolt, doesn't completely shutdown ship but slows them substantially and prevents phase jump and with an uncapped AOE with decent area size. Can shutdown whole fleets of clumped ships from leaving for 18s at level 3 and fire again in 7s.

This is hilarious. Ion Bolt is not broken. The cool down is just long enough that a cap ship can get out of the grav well. I'm surprised you're not complaining about phase-out hull, which has such a short cool down that as long as you have AM, then your cap will never make it out of the grav well. As someone also pointed out, the Akkan isn't exactly an AM king, and about 3 stings is all you'll likely get out of it (until late game when you have high level cap and AM culture bonus).

Gravity Warhead still allows ships to move and orient in preparation for a phase jump, though. If the player who gets gravity bombed has any idea what's going on, then if their fleet or their cap is in trouble, they'll almost certainly be able to make it to the edge of the gravity well and warp out before 25 seconds are up.

On the other hand, Ion Bolt actually does prevent caps from moving very significantly: by the time the cooldown has expired, the enemy cap will probably only have picked up a tiny bit of speed and then it'll be disabled and slowed to a stop again. I think Ion Bolt is a somewhat better ability for trapping enemy caps: with the Akkan you'll probably be able to use it at least 3 times and prevent the enemy cap from orienting and warping out for significantly longer than Gravity Warhead.

On the other hand, Gravity Warhead is nice for stalling entire enemy fleets for a bit, which can be very useful in combination with the Orkulus.

Ion Bolt is by no means overpowered, but it's better for sniping caps than Gravity Warhead.

If the Akkan's move speed got boosted to the same level as other capital ships, then there might be an argument to be had. As it stands, its sluggish move speed means you have lots of opportunities to kill the thing or at least force it to withdraw. Carrier capital ships can kite away from it and have no excuse for even getting into ion bolt range in the first place. Yes, the TEC economic opener is overwhelmingly strong, but ion bolt isn't the culprit behind that. The ability has significant antimatter constraints, has no damage component, and is just about the only thing the Akkan can contribute to a straight fight.

Now, I will agree that ion bolt is very much a front-loaded ability, and you might argue that level 1 ion bolt is too strong, but level 2 and certainly level 3 ion bolt are fine as is.

Skirantra OP.... now that is some good shit, you should try stand up comedy. It's worse than Sova and on par with Halcyon.

For start: I'm talking about early game, which is more often than not deciding about win/lose.

Where did i exactly state that ion bolt is 'broken'? I never said ion bolt is OMGWTFPWN. Sins early game for a long time has been about spamming LRF and sniping caps and ion bolt is just too good at supporting this strat. LRM is most cost effective LRF with most DPS which can melt caps in seconds. Add ion bolt and you pretty much have to keep your cap at edge of grav well preventing it from using it's DPS and close range abilities. Sure if you're TEC you can somewhat negate this advantage with your neat hoshikos, but thats beside the point. Ion bolt would be fine if Akkan wasn't colonizer, but it is. It's too versatile, it should be more eco oriented.

Game reality changes and if in Rebellion most popular frigate (corvette?) will be low DPS, ion bolt will be fine, weak or trash. But as it is now seconds decide whether your cap lives or not and ion bolt gives you too many of those precious seconds. It's subtle ability and it's strenght is not as obvious as embargo's.

By increasing cooldown I meant fairly small adjustment. Ironclad tends to overdo nerfs.

This is the fallacy that us Sins players constantly fall prey to. The Devs aren't trying to balance the factions equally across all phases of the game. The Devs seek to balance the races dynamically as in 1 race is great early game and loses steam late game, another struggles early but is decent in mid game and a powerhouse at the end and the other is ok early great middle and ok end game.

TEC aren't OP. They just have the strongest early game yet conversely they can be DECIMATED by a fully developed late game Vas or Advent Fleet.

Think your forgetting that Ion Bolt can stop shield regeneration from happening when used at the corret time. Malice has been nerfed really bad and needs fixing, just a little those.

Sorry if I wasn't clear BlackHawk, I wasn't comparing them in a direct confrontation one with another, I was comparing their abilities from an overall combat utility standpoint. So my point was that overall, Ion is a better combat ability than Malice and Shield regen is a better fleet support ability than Uplink. Erego, from an overally utility standpoint, I find them (Akk & Prog) to be comparable.

Fast forward X amount of time: an argument that both TEC and Vasari both are OP'd can be made. People complain about it.

You can't make everybody happy.

If I had to choose one race to be left out in the cold, it would be the Vasari, because they are the cheapest way to an easy victory. All you need is Phase Missiles. (Slight exaggeration, but you get my point) (I hope)